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K. Hufbauer (UCIrvine, UWashington)
Starting with a succinct narrative of coronal science's highlights from the 1860s (when eclipse observers reached consensus that the corona is a solar feature) to the 1970s (when space scientists began observing stellar coronae, and in so doing imposed new constraints on coronal theorizing), this talk will go on to discuss the backgrounds of the scientists who played the main roles in initiating fresh lines of coronal research. They tended to come to their achievements with more training in physics than astronomy, with a stronger orientation to instrument development than to astronomical observing or theorizing, and with but modest knowledge of the current state of coronal science. Their "outsider" profiles were probably a consequence of both the exceptional difficulty of observing the corona during most of this period and of the resultant smallness of the core group devoting a sizeable amount of time to coronal research.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: hufbauer@u.washington.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.